Israeli woman discharged, might have flown back (Lead)

New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS) Four days after she was injured in a bomb attack on her car, Israeli embassy official Tal Yehoshua Koren was Friday discharged from a Delhi hospital and is understood to have flown back to Israel.

Doctors at Delhi’s Primus hospital confirmed that Koren was discharged on a request from the Israeli embassy.

She is understood to have left for Israel in an air-ambulance. Officials at the Israeli embassy were, however, not available to confirm this.

“She (Koren) has been discharged on request from Israeli embassy. She said she wanted to be with her family and we decided to discharge her after examining her medical condition,” N.D. Khurana, medical superintendent at the Primus Hospital, told IANS.

Her statement was also recorded by Delhi Police earlier in the day. The police officers, however, did not disclose details of her statement.

Koren, wife of the Israeli defence attache, suffered multiple injuries Monday when a motorcycle rider attached a magnetic explosive device to her car and sped away. Within seconds, the device exploded with a thunderous sound, setting the car on fire.

“She was discharged on request around 4 p.m., and she’s being airlifted to Israel in an air ambulance,” Additional Medical Superintendent Deep Makkad told IANS.

“Her condition was stable but she should still be under observation for some time,” said Makkad.

Koren was accompanied by a team of doctors from Israel as she left the hospital.

“The team of doctors has taken complete responsibility of taking her back home and carrying ahead the treatment,” Khurana added.

Arun Bhanot, the doctor who led the team treating Koren, said “We discharged her when we saw that the staff of air ambulance were confident enough that she could be flown back without any harm to her.”

Doctors had earlier conducted surgery to remove a 1.5 cm diameter shrapnel from Koren’s spine that had injured a nerve, causing weakness in her left leg.

Bhanot added that she was recovering well.

“Her condition has improved and she was recovering well. She was very cheerful and grateful for the treatment she received here,” he said.

Israel has pointed fingers towards Iran for the attack. India however, has so far refrained from pointing fingers at Iran.

Earlier in her preliminary statement, sources said, the diplomat had said that she had not seen the motorcycle-borne attacker, who stuck the bomb on her vehicle at Aurangzeb Road and sped away.